You are encouraged to submit a paragraph or two about your experience at St. Lazare, for posting here. Your name or parish will not be published; unless otherwise requested, your initials will be published. Thank you for sharing your experience at St. Lazare Retreat House.

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Posted 6/08

Dear Fr Michael Shea,

I attended retreat in April with my parish ladies and many other wonderful Catholic women of our GR diocese. I think this was retreat #4 for me. I was just reading my Magnificate Editorial for the month of May about prayers of petition and intercessory prayer. It just hit me that I should write to say to my fellow Catholic women who were on retreat with me what a healing weekend it turned out to be for me. First was the Sacrament of Reconciliation which gets me on the right path for my weekend journey with my Lord and then I was Anointed with the Sacrament of Healing on the altar with many others. After suffering with cronic back and leg sciatic nerve problems for one year almost to the day, I prayed for healing and promised to try, even though it hurts, to exercise and work at healthy things to be healed from this trial. Since about 2 weeks now I have not been taking any more night time pain killers I have been doing my stretching exercises and have been bike riding 5 miles on country roads and all without pain! I think stress adds to my spinal inflamation too and I have tried to relax in the Lords goodness to me and help with the healing of my body. I have always believed in intercessory prayer and have made it my prayer each day for others and have seen the sometimes miraculous ways God answers those prayers for those I have prayed for, but I decided I needed to include myself in His healing and once again He who is all good and knowing decided somehow I too was worthy of His healing. In this Year of St. Paul we remember his counsel " In everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God" (Phil 4:6) Even remembering that sometimes you need to pray for yourself! Praise and Thanksgiving Be To the LORD!            K.W.

  Posted 5/8/06

I just returned from my first retreat at St. Lazare’s Retreat House. Wow! What a beautiful and renewing experience for my soul! I thought that the “silence” of the retreat would be difficult; instead, it was a blessing. Silence is sacred. It is in silence that God can and does speak directly to a person’s soul. This retreat was very intimate and personal. It was as if I was having a conversation with God all weekend and there were no distractions to keep me from Him.

Before I came on retreat, I had an idea of how and what I wanted to speak to God about; I knew what I wanted to “work” on spiritually. I was prepared to make a few requests, read about the saints, learn more about the Church. As the first night progressed, I began to see that God had a different agenda. I saw that instead of asking God for things, I began to praise him and thank him for everything from my family, health, even the sound of the water. He then showed me how much I carry around anxieties and worries. I never really realized how much I worried until then. He then reminded me that I need to trust in Him always. Simple – yes. But I needed to hear it.

I want to thank everyone who worked on the retreat. What a wonderful, refreshing weekend.

  JSB

Posted 10/26/05

First We would like to thank you all for all your prayers during our sons illness and Brent’s fight for life against cancer these last 2 years. The power of prayer works, heres how:

 Brents fight started 2 years this November and as you know the heart wrenching and stress for us was horrible. The ladies retreat at St. Lazarre last spring I asked my husband if he cared if I went and of course he didn't, as I felt a few days with quiet and the closeness with God would help me in this troubled time.I spent the first day praying and listening, and that night during night prayers Father said we aren't going to say a certain prayer but instead said a novena to our Blessed Mother, the Miraculous Metal novena as they were having several miracles. We all started saying the novena and I got real warm and tingling feeling and I started to weep and after the novena I left the chapel in tears.

 I came home and telephoned my son and asked him if he had a miracalous metal and told him about my experiance at retreat, he said yes and he told me he received a metal blessed by Mother Thersa and the nun told him that he would get his miracle but not the way he expected. I went to the Angles store and bought a metal for myself, my husband and one for our daughter along with novena books. I changed the prayers I was saying every night and began the novena, I never missed a night.
 

When I got upset I would stop and say Hail Marys until I was calm again. He had another surgery last August and the surgeon felt bad as she could only remove 90% of the tumors. He was upset but his dad and I said if God alowed the sugeons to get that much, God could surely do the rest. Well HE DID last week he had a pet scan and it was clean NO TUMORS. We want to thank all of you for your heart felt prayers as the POWER OF PRAYER WORKS.

L. & G. B.

Posted 3/15/05

I have been attending St. Lazare annually since 1987. I missed 1989 and 1991 when my two sons were born, both in January. As I look back over those 18 years I see a gradual but steady growth in myself concerning faith, character, and maturity. Each year good and bad would happen. The retreat at St. Lazare helped me to refocus, to beg forgiveness, and to receive grace. To be alone with the Lord, in mind, body, and spirit. To learn something about prayer and listening for God in the silence. What a powerful impact the retreat experience has had on my life.

As I look through journals of years gone by I remember how difficult life can be and how, each year, the retreat helped me and so my family, get through and carry on. I don't know where I'd be without Jesus, the Church, and the Retreat House in my life.

Thank you to Father Mike, Father Robert, and all the Vincentians who have kept the message of forgiveness, faith, hope, and love alive at St. Lazare's Retreat House.

Sincerely, JRV

Posted 3/1/05

What a great gift St. Lazare Retreat House is. Gift upon gift I receive from my Catholic faith and now St. Lazare as well. I am not alone; I’m with other of men who are walking toward holiness and a greater love for God. St. Lazare is my chance to be still and quiet inside and out as God speaks to my heart in so many ways.            TH

Posted 2/17/05         Breakfast on Saturday Morning at St. Lazare

How many countless times has man tried to put into words the beauty of God. To be eating a meal and watch the sun rise over the treetops, the mist rising from the frozen lake, blinded by the brightness of the morning sun. There are no words that can be written to describe it. To see a number of men, mesmerized and admiring the beauty before their eyes. To feel the warmth of the sun upon our faces, and yet sit in silence and in awe of that beauty. How can one not feel moved. Do the others think as I do? Are they thinking what a great day to be out ice fishing or are they glad to be indoors on a cold day, even though the sun is shining. Are they wishing they could share this moment with the others? Do they reflect that it is the Holy Spirit filling their souls with love and admiration for the beauty they are seeing.

What matters is not how they feel but what they all know in their hearts, and that is without God, that simple beauty would not exist and therefore we would not exist, to serve and worship the Father, by knowing his Son, and being filled with the Holy Spirit. Is it through that light of the morning sun, that we can feel the same as Jesus's disciples felt when they were filled with the Holy Spirt and saw the light and understood why Jesus Christ was sent to die for us?                -DK
 

Posted 2/15/05         I have visited St. Lazare annually for many years. Each year is a new and different experience; all of them rewarding. Some of the retreats have been profound because of words spoken by the priest during one of the conferences; they seemed to leap out at me, as if he had been reading my mind.

Others, such as this year’s retreat, are more subtle, with the undeniable presence of God felt so warmly during my times of meditation and reading. This is a very stressful time. At my recent retreat, as in many before, I felt the presence and help of St. Therese, even to the point of tears. Through her intercession, I believe God will answer my prayers, and grant me the graces to accept His will, though it may not match my plans.

Thank you, Fathers Michael and Robert, for helping me recharge my spiritual battery!             -JA